Agree.

 

I don't know if this is still true statistically but a number of years ago I was talking with a doctor from Cincinnati Children's and he told me they see way more soccer injuries than football injuries, including concussions.

 

If you compare statistic percentages, soccer has way more injuries than football does when it comes to essentially all body parts other than the head.

 

The reason you hear the "soccer produces more concussions than football" line mentioned so often is because of participation numbers. Very few females participate in football as a whole. If you look at youth sports participation numbers in the United States, there are about 2.5 million males and 1.7 million females competing in youth soccer, while there are only 2.5 million total (males and females combined) competing in youth football. The "soccer produces more concussions than football" line is almost always referring to total numbers compared to total numbers rather than percentage of participating players compared to percentage of participating players. Football has a notably higher concussion rate in the percentage discussion.

 

The other thing that isn't often discussed is that in soccer, lacrosse, and football, the number of un-diagnosed concussions is estimated at almost a 50% rate...meaning almost a half of all actual concussions go un-diagnosed. I asked my wife to explain that to me a little further when she initially told me about that, and she said, "Basically every single kid who comes into the hospital for a concussion is REALLY concussed. There's no doubt about it. I don't think I have ever had a single kid come into the hospital with a suspected concussion and ended up confirming that they don't have one. That turns my concern to the fact that when it takes an injury like that to make someone worry 'oh, this kid might have a concussion', then what number of kids have concussions that go completely ignored?"

Edited October 8, 20196 yr by Colonels_Wear_Blue

It seems that the rec/middle school leagues are keeping numbers but CSAA continues to dwindle. I really think there needs to be a marketing effort to get kids playing football again especially in the Catholic grade schools. Pretty soon the majority of kids playing football at the Catholic HS's will be from public schools. Its already obvious at the smaller ones. (DeSales/Holy Cross)

It seems that the rec/middle school leagues are keeping numbers but CSAA continues to dwindle. I really think there needs to be a marketing effort to get kids playing football again especially in the Catholic grade schools. Pretty soon the majority of kids playing football at the Catholic HS's will be from public schools. Its already obvious at the smaller ones. (DeSales/Holy Cross)

 

Also the Catholic grade schools are getting smaller due to cost of tuition and as people may leave the church.

Catholic school enrollment is down all over the state has been for years.

I think it was a really bad mistake for the CSAA to implement tackle football in 3/4 grades. As it has been stated in this thread previously, once a kid of this age has a negative experience (heat, a hard hit, etc.), it is almost impossible to get him back to the sport once he quits.

 

I think they should go to a padded flag program like implemented by USA football at this age. It would be a good transition to wearing equipment and blocking without the hard hits that come from tackling.

 

I love football. I think that is is the greatest team sport ever devised. It teaches life lessons like no other. However, if we coach it like it is still 1950, like some CSAA coaches do, we may lose the game we love.

Well stated bruin66. I was a Catholic School AD for a number of years. FB is a tough sport. If you lose them early, you don't get them back. I think the powers that be who changed this were "machos" and made a horrible decision. High schools and colleges are getting away from contact everyday in practice (like I had in HS), and these clowns want to make 9s and 10s hit.